


the lucky seven

by trashmouthuris



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (ok maybe there's a pinch of stozier but that's not my fault), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Bisexual Richie Tozier, Bisexual Stanley Uris, Gen, Heist, Minor Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, be gay do crime, inspired by oceans 8 and the gardner museum heist, no ships just vibes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28741989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashmouthuris/pseuds/trashmouthuris
Summary: “richard.”“staniel.”“you have been planning on robbing my place of employment?” he questioned, bewildered. Richie shrugged.“well, it’s been purely hypothetical up until now, but if you wanted to…” he trailed off suggestively. stan simply stared at him for a long moment, waiting for a punchline that wasn’t coming.“no!”-the losers club robs a museum.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. two months before

Richie was so tired that he hardly jumped when Stan slammed the door to their shared apartment. It was far too early – 8:30 A.M., later than Stan usually arrived – but Richie couldn’t be bothered to complain, so he allowed it. He knew how stressed Stan could be when he returned in the morning. 

“What was it this time?”

“They kept us for an extra hour to tell us about some party that isn’t happening for another two months that we’re gonna have to work. But did I get any fuckin overtime for it?” He huffed as he grabbed a tea bag out of the cabinet and switched on the electric kettle, rather violently. 

“... no?” Richie offered when he realized Stan wasn’t going to answer his own question. Stan threw his hands in the air in exasperation, swinging his tea cup without contempt. 

“No!” He shouted. Despite his anger, he set his mug down rather delicately and waited in silence for his water to boil. 

Stan worked as a night guard at their city’s museum, taking his accounting and economics classes in the afternoons to let him sleep in while still being able to help pay the bills. Richie had also taken his classes in the afternoon, before he dropped out. Now he just tagged along with Stan to their downtown campus four times a week to host his radio show on the college’s station; normally they only let students work at the station, but the students had loved Richie “Records” Tozier so much that they had decided to let him stay. 

“God, I should just quit. This shit really isn’t worth it.” Stan said as he sat down at the table across from Richie, taking a long drink of his tea. Richie looked at the other boy for a moment before speaking up.

“So let’s rob them,” he said, suddenly wide awake. Stan chuckled humorlessly.

“Very funny.” 

“I’m serious. I’ve been working on this plan for a while-” Richie began before Stan cut him off, eyes wide.

“Richard.”

“Staniel.”

“You have been planning on  _ robbing  _ my  _ place of employment _ ?” He questioned, bewildered. Richie shrugged.

“Well, it’s been purely hypothetical up until now, but if you wanted to…” He trailed off suggestively. Stan simply stared at him for a long moment, waiting for a punchline that wasn’t coming.

“ _ No! _ ” Richie rolled his eyes at his roommate’s dramatics. He stood up, making his way around the table and plopping himself down in Stan’s lap. Stan was only mildly confused, mostly because he was tired – this was not very far out of line for Richie. Though it did still make him blush.

“Stanley. Listen. You hate this job, yes?” Richie said, throwing his arm around Stan’s shoulders. Stan just nodded. “So what would be the biggest ‘fuck you’ to this museum?”

“... stealing shit?” 

“Stealing shit!”

“Rich, we would never get away with it,” Stan said. Richie shook his head.

“Not alone, no.” He thought about it for a moment, though Stan already knew the conclusion he would come to. When the lightbulb finally went on he started drumming the table in excitement. “Babe, we gotta get the band back together!”

“They’re never gonna go for this, Rich,” Stan said, shaking his head with a small smile. Richie ignored him and started pacing around the room in excitement.

“Oh, this is gonna be so fun.”

-

Eddie, unsurprisingly, was the first to show up. Richie welcomed him in while Stan set out some snacks because he refused to have his friends over without feeding them. What kind of host would he be if he didn’t? 

Shortly after Eddie arrived, Bill and Ben showed up, having come from class. Mike and Beverly were the last to appear. The group gathered on and around the boys’ couch, all unaware of why they had been called. They took the time to catch up while Richie hooked up his computer to their TV. Once he was done, he stood in front of the powerpoint he had pulled up, waiting for his friends to quiet down.

“I bet you’re wondering why I called you here today,” he said with a devilish grin. Stan rolled his eyes and wondered if he only wanted to do this so he would have an excuse to say that. When the losers finally took note of what was on the screen, there was a small uproar of confusion.

“You want to rob a museum?!” Eddie asked, bewildered. 

“Did you seriously make this powerpoint using comic sans?”

“Guys, guys, settle down. I know it seems outlandish-” Richie started an attempt at an explanation when Eddie cut him off.

“Richie, I’m pretty sure we could go to jail for even thinking about this.” 

“You have nothing to worry about, Eddie spaghetti. This powerpoint is on a very secure server-”

“It’s on Google Drive.” Stan interjected. Richie stared at him for a moment before resuming.

“Anyways. Will you guys please let me tell you the goddamn plan before you shoot me down?” There were some nods, so Richie continued. “Alright, strap in. Please save all your questions for the end – and you will have questions because I am, as we know, a genius, and I don’t expect you guys to get it right off the bat.” 

He spent the next hour going through his slideshow, explaining the surprisingly well thought-out plan to his friends. Each loser had already been assigned a role; Stan would be their inside man, Eddie would be doing research about what the museum currently had and what would make good targets, Ben would be studying the layout of the building to help Richie work out an escape route, Beverly and Bill would be the distraction, Mike would be doing some additional research as well as waiting outside to help load his truck and get out quick, and Richie was already the self-proclaimed “criminal mastermind” and would be doing most of the actual stealing. 

When he got past the roles into the actual plan for the evening, the losers were shocked by how much detail Richie had put into it and how intricate it would be. Even though the sophistication of it all was put off by the comic sans and the shitty transitions Richie insisted on using. Once he finished he opened the floor up to questions, as promised.

“Is using Stan the best idea? I mean, he’ll probably already be a suspect, won’t he?” Mike asked. Richie had been anticipating this question.

“Not if we frame him as a victim,” he replied. Stan raised an eyebrow.

“You just want an excuse to tie me up,” he said. Richie shot him a wink before moving on. Each question branched off into three new questions, and Richie had an answer for every single one. 

“Holy shit, Rich, this might actually work,” Beverly said after a while. Richie gave an over exaggerated bow and reminded them again that he was a genius. Eddie still looked skeptical.

“I don’t think so. I think we’ll get caught,” he said. Ben nodded in agreement.

“Come on, guys, have some faith in me! Don’t you remember the incident with the school mascot junior year?” Most of them nodded, while Stan and Beverly exchanged a look that said  _ will he ever shut up about this _ ? Richie said nothing, just waited for them to figure out the connection he was trying to make.

“H-holy shit, that w-w-was you?” Bill asked. Richie nodded proudly. Eddie wondered why he never knew about that. Even though it had been a small feat, nowhere near the severity of an actual art heist, the fact that Richie had been able to pull it off without some of his closest friends not knowing it was him seemed to be what flipped the switch for the losers. They started to think that they could really do this. 

“Wait, what do we do afterwards? I mean, you can’t just pawn stolen paintings,” Beverly said. Richie clapped once, realizing he forgot to put that in his powerpoint.

“Oh, I have that covered. I know a guy.” Once again most of the group was confused with the exception of Beverly and Stan. Beverly piped up again when it clicked and she realized who he was talking about.

“Please tell me it’s your doppelganger,” she said, bouncing on the couch in excitement. Richie sighed in exasperation. 

“How many times do I have to tell you we don’t look that similar?” He asked, scratching the back of his neck. Bev was about to deny when Ben cut in.

“Wait, so you just casually have a friend who has experience selling stolen paintings?” He looked concerned. Richie scrunched his nose while trying to figure out how to explain.

“I mean, he wasn’t the one who stole it, per se... technically it was his boyfriend, but don’t bring it up. It’s a touchy subject.” Stan nodded, eyes wide, like he knew exactly what Richie meant and had been on the receiving end of that situation. Nobody wanted to ask. “So? What do you say?”

The group sat quietly for a moment, taking it all in. They knew how dire the consequences would be if they fucked it up, but they also knew what it would mean for them if they pulled it off.

“Give me a reason,” Eddie said quietly. This drew the attention of the rest of the losers, but no one said anything, so he continued. “You’ve clearly thought everything through. What makes you think we’ll want to do it?”

“Eds, don’t you want a chance to get away from your mom?” Richie replied, ignoring the small “don’t call me that” from Eddie. “Stan’s reason is as clear as any, I’ve had to listen to him complain about this god-forsaken museum for a year. Beverly, you’ll get a chance to leave that dumbass boutique and go somewhere that actually gives a shit about your designs, and Ben, you’ve been wanting some backup money in case your scholarship falls through, haven’t you? Bill, I know you won’t let us do anything stupid without you, and Mike won’t let us get  _ caught  _ doing anything stupid. So,” Richie flopped down onto the last remaining seat, on the loveseat next to Stan. “You’ve all got motive. You’ve all got means. I say we rob the bastards.” 

“What’s your reason?” Stan asked. Richie grinned. 

“Honestly? I just really want to know if we can pull it off.” His friends laughed at this, not at all surprised. Stan clapped him on the shoulder.

“I’m in.” Richie’s smile grew, widening from ear to ear with each confirmation that his friends were with him. Their excitement and anticipation hung in the air around them.

“Oh, I almost forgot the best part – once we’ve completed the third greatest art heist of all time, we all get matching commemorative tattoos!”

This was, by far, the most dissented part of Richie’s plan. 


	2. one month before

“Oh, god, what happened to this place?” Beverly asked, shutting the door to Stan and Richie’s apartment. Strewn across every available space were maps, art books, empty takeout containers, and stressed college kids. “It's a good thing you guys don’t have any other friends to come over and get suspicious about all this, huh?” 

Stan rolled his eyes, accepting a cup of coffee from Beverly, who circled the room distributing drinks to the losers. He was working with Ben in front of a map of the museum that had been pinned to the wall in front of them. Eddie was sitting at the counter with his laptop, with Richie cross-legged on the counter next to him hovering over his screen. Beverly took a seat next to Mike and Bill on the couch. 

“Yeah, Rich, what is all this for anyway? I thought you had everything worked out,” Mike questioned, Bill nodding along in agreement. The losers all turned to Richie in anticipation of his answer; after all, they may be planning an elaborate heist, but they still had homework to do. 

“Well it’s no fun if I figure  _ everything  _ out by myself, we’re a team! Everyone gets to chip in!” Richie looked to each of his friends, who seemed unamused, and deflated. “Fine. We need to make sure that every single thing goes the way we planned it, and if it doesn’t, we need backup plans on backup plans. And we all need to know them like the backs of our hands. Even if they are very small hands,” he punctuated his answer by ruffling Eddie’s hair, earning him a swat. The group nodded, returning to their work. Richie turned his attention to Eddie.

“So, spaghetti, what do they got?” He asked. Eddie was switching between the museum’s website and recent articles about its exhibits to see what they might be able to steal. Richie nodded as Eddie explained what he had found so far. Eddie had been to the museum a few times since he had moved to the city, including once or twice in the last month, but he was still surprised by what they had. 

“They have a couple Rembrandts, a Matisse, some Keith Haring stuff, Jackson Pollock, fucking -  _ Monet _ ? Where are they getting this shit? We live in Maine!” Richie chuckled, absentmindedly biting his nail.

“Scratch the Haring,” he said. Eddie gave him a questioning look as he sipped his coffee. “What? Two bisexuals in an apartment and you think we  _ wouldn’t  _ want to keep a Keith Haring piece?” Richie said. Eddie rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Richie asked him to narrow down his list to the smaller paintings, and to check what rooms they were in.

“Our best bet would probably be one of the Rembrandts, a Renoir, and the Matisse, and they are… all in the same room,” Eddie told him, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise until he looked at Richie, who bore a slight grin. “But you knew that already.” Richie shrugged, hopping off the counter, espresso in hand. Eddie shook his head and tried to hide his astonishment.

“What did I say, Eds? Genius.”

\- 

Stan tried to tune out Richie and Eddie’s bickering about how Richie had been sending Eddie to the museum for nothing as he worked with Ben. After going over the plan step-by-step with Richie a few times, Ben and Stan were laying out exactly where the losers would be throughout the night based on the coverage of the security cameras. The map they were using was really far too large, and would be highly suspicious to anyone outside the group, but when questioned about it Richie had claimed it was for ‘the aesthetic.’ Ben just printed himself a smaller one that he could actually work with.

“So, there’s a camera at each end of this hallway, but none in the hallway itself, and there’s a maintenance door here that is covered by this camera,” Stan explained, pointing to the areas he was talking about on the map and glancing at his computer screen as he spoke. “I should be able to get this camera off the door within the next month. Can we get out from there?” Ben considered the map.

“If we can avoid this hallway by taking this other one on our way there, we should be in the clear, but I don’t know if they’ll be accessible to partygoers,” he said. Stan adjusted his reading glasses and clicked through the notes he had gathered during the security team’s latest briefing. looking for an answer to Ben’s question. “If not, I can probably figure out another way around it, but this would be the fastest-”

“No, I think we’ll be good,” Stan drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “That door doesn’t normally have any security measures since it’s just back way through the museum. It’s not advertised, but it’s not exactly restricted, either.” Ben nodded. He stole a glance at Beverly, Bill, and Mike, who had been joined by Richie. 

“Do you really think this will work?” He asked, meeting Stan’s eyes. Stan thought for a moment and took in the mess that had overtaken his and Richie’s home.

“It has to, or we are severely fucked,” he replied. Ben laughed. He was about to get up when there was a knock at the door. For the second time that night, everyone turned to look at Richie - all unsure of what fate awaited them. Richie shared their look of confusion for a few painstaking seconds before realization hit him. 

“Oh! I ordered pizza.” He said, narrowly missing a pencil Stan flung at him. Richie was about to toss a die to decide who would have to answer the door, but Bill volunteered before he could, muttering something about timelines. He opened the door, ready to accept the pizza, briefly forgetting everything that was set up behind him. The pizza delivery boy gave him a strange look as he handed Bill the boxes.

“W-we’re, uh... p-planning a dungeons and d-d-dragons campaign,” Bill said. He handed him the money and closed the door before he could get any change.

He brought the pizza to the coffee table, where the rest of the losers were now seated either on the couch or the floor. Richie, Bev, and Mike were discussing the details of Beverly’s part of the plan while she worked on the finishing touches of her dress for the party. She had already worked on outfits for Ben, Richie, and Bill.

“Why are you making whole new outfits for this anyways? Won’t you guys blend in better if you’re wearing what everyone else is wearing?” Mike asked as he accepted a paper plate from Eddie. Beverly tied a knot in the thread she was working with before setting it down.

“We can’t afford what everyone else is wearing, hence why we are robbing the place!” She laughed as Mike shrugged in concession before returning to their conversation with Richie. “Rich, I’m not sure I like your idea for this distraction. It sounds like something out of a bad heist movie. Like,  _ really  _ bad.” 

“Beverly, my dear, you don’t have to like the plan, it just has to work. Besides, it will be a piece of cake - we’ll bring them in during the day, before the museum closes to start setting up and to avoid the bag check at the party. There’s a loose vent cover in one of the bathrooms, and you can leave them in there until it’s time.” Richie explained it as if it were nothing. “Mikey, you’re still good to drive, right?” He asked, and Mike nodded. They knew they wouldn’t all fit in his truck, though, so Eddie volunteered to be their second driver. 

“Wait, I want to get back to Beverly not having to like the plan - I thought we were all supposed to be a part of this?” Eddie contested. Richie stared at him for a moment before throwing his plate on the table and lunging at him. Eddie shrieked, scrambling away with a loud laugh. The rest of the group ignored them, discussing various aspects of their plan; Stan, Mike and Ben went over their escape route to Mike’s truck while Bill and Beverly talked about how they would be getting into the party. Bev was working on getting an invite through her work, while Bill was in charge of coming up with other possible aliases that might get them through the door. 

Eventually, they settled down and rejoined the losers around the coffee table. Richie threw himself across Stan and Mike’s laps and sighed contentedly. 

“Just think, this time next month we’ll be rich,” he said. 

“Or we’ll be in prison,” Stan said. 

“Or we’ll be in prison,” Richie agreed. He cracked open a new can of soda. “Cheers!”

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at/with me on tumblr @trashmouthuris


End file.
